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Videos shared on social media show scenes of chaos across the country with hospitals overflowing with victims.
Thousands of members of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah, including fighters and medics, were wounded on Tuesday when the pagers they use to communicate exploded, a security source told Reuters.
A Hezbollah official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the detonation of the pagers was the “biggest security breach” the group had been subjected to in nearly a year of war with Israel.
The explosions took place amid heightened violence between Israel and Hezbollah, who have been engaged in cross-border warfare since the Gaza war erupted last October in the worst such escalation in years.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military to Reuters enquiries about the detonations.
Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Mojtaba Amani was injured by the pager explosion a source told Reuters.
The Syrian Center for Human Rights, a Syrian opposition body, reported that Hezbollah operatives who were injured in the beeper attack arrived for treatment at the hospitals in Damascus.
Videos shared on social media show scenes of chaos across the country with hospitals overflowing with victims.
A Reuters journalist saw ambulances rushing through the southern suburbs of the capital Beirut amid widespread panic.
Residents said explosions were taking place even 30 minutes after the initial blasts. The security source added that devices were also exploding in the south of Lebanon.
Groups of people huddled at the entrance of buildings to check on people they knew who may have been wounded, the Reuters journalist said.
Regional broadcasters carrying CCTV footage which showed what appeared to be a small handheld device placed next to a grocery store cashier where an individual was paying spontaneously exploding. In other footage, an explosion appeared to knock out someone standing at a fruit stand at a market area.
Lebanon’s crisis operations center, which is run by the health ministry, asked all medical workers to head to their respective hospitals to help cope with the massive numbers of wounded coming into for urgent care. It said health care workers should not use pagers.
Hospital services across the country also appealed for blood donations.
Hezbollah fired missiles at Israel immediately after the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas gunmen on Israel. Hezbollah and Israel have been exchanging fire constantly ever since, while avoiding a major escalation as war rages in Gaza to the south.
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